“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use, whether you are an instructor, student or self-learner” (Source: Open Educational Resources Infokit via OER Commons).
There is a wide range of OER tools. Popular examples include Khan Academy, Moodle and TED-Ed.
“In general, open source refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit. Open source software is usually developed as a public collaboration and made freely available” (Source: Search Enterprise Linux).
Program developers who produce open source software seek make computer software available to the all for free or inexpensively. Popular examples of open source are OpenOffice, WordPress, and Mozilla Firefox.
“Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is "the right to copy", but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other related rights” (Source: Wikipedia).
The U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 established protections for creators. The Copyright Act of 1976 also includes a section on “Fair Use,” which established rights for users of created works.
“Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce” (Source: World Intellectual Property Organization).
Like copyright law, intellectual property is confusing and varies across countries.
“Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools” (Creative Commons).
I think of the Creative Commons movement as an attempt to promote digital citizenship. Creative Commons license provides flexibility for creators and users of created works.
“The public domain of copyright refers to the aggregate of those works that are not restricted by copyright within a given jurisdiction. A work may be part of the public domain because the applicable term of copyright has expired, because the rightsholder surrendered copyright in the work with a tool like CC0, or because the work did not meet the applicable standards for copyrightability” (Source: Creative Commons).
Works that are part of the Public Domain do not require permission to be used.
“The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools forge a balance inside the traditional “all rights reserved” setting that copyright law creates. Our tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work” (Source: Creative Commons).
Creative Commons has partnered with several groups to provided creative works with CC licenses. The most popular tool is searching CC works through flickr.
Curriki is an OER with a variety of materials that have been submitted by its online community. According to its website, Curriki grew out of the Global Education and Learning Project. The chief sponsor of Curriki is AT&T. All Curriki editorial content is copyrighted by Curriki and shared under a Creatie Commons Attribution license. (Source: Curriki) I was turned off by the immediate request for a donation screen that pops up once I confirmed my registration to the site.
Thinkfinity is an OER sponsored by the Verizon Foundation. Thinkfinity has a variety of materials from their content partners. I like that Thinkfinity pulls its materials from reputable sources like EDSITEment and Read.Write.Think. (Source: Thinkfinity) The interface for Thinkfinity is easy to navigate.
Connexions is an OER sponsored by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Maxfield Foundation, and the Connexions Consortium (which was created to promote the growth of Connexions). “Connexions is a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc” (Source: Connexions). When you sign-up for Connexions and submit content, you are required to abide by Connexions’ license agreement which states, “Connexions requires that all content submitted to our repository be placed under an Open Content license that allows others to use, distribute, and create derivative works based upon that content. The Attribution license from Creative Commons fulfills this requirement, while still allowing authors to receive credit for their efforts” (Source: Connexions).
P2PU is an OER sponsored by the Hewlett Foundation, the Shuttleworth Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation and the Digital Media and Learning Competition. According to its website, P2PU “is a grassroots open education project that organizes learning outside of institutional walls and gives learners recognition for their achievements” (P2PU).
I saw an Ignite talk by one of the founders of P2PU and think the strength of this OER is their ability to foster a strong online community. It relies on passionate volunteers who contribute content and strongly believe in the mission of P2PU.
EPIC-Ed is an OER run by Tangient LLC which is a wiki service provider. EPIC-Ed is an online community with the mission to “provide planning and implementation support for technology-enhanced learning environments through thoughtfully selected, easily accessible learning and teaching strategies, planning models, and experts” (Source: EPIC-Ed).
After exploring the website, I am still not really sure how it works. Maybe when my request for membership to the Wiki is accepted I will better understand what resources are available.
21st Century Skills has been a popular buzz phrase in education for the past couple of decades. It is interesting to note that while we are now more than a decade into the 21st century, there really is still no agreed upon definition of 21st Century Skills. The Partnership for 21st Century Learning provides a framework for 21st Century Skills that includes the 4Cs and 3Rs, Life and Career Skills, and Information, Media, and Technology Skills (Partnership for 21st Century Skills)
“Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly” (Source: Wiki.org). I read a description of a Wiki somewhere as part database, part Word document. I think of a Wiki as a tool for organizing information with a community of users you trust. The first Wiki I ever joined was for my daughter’s playgroup (Las Madres). Creating a useful Wiki can be time consuming and difficult to maintain, if you do not have a committed group of contributors.
MERLOT is an OER sponsored by Adobe, McGraw-Hill, Sify Technologies Limited, SoftChalk and Sun. “MERLOT is a free and open online community of resources designed primarily for faculty, staff and students of higher education from around the world to share their learning materials and pedagogy” (Source: MERLOT)
A blog is a website that can be on anything, the possibilities are endless. According to Blogger, “a blog is a web site, where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what's new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Or not” (Source: Blogger). There is a wide range of ways to customize your blog. Popular blog platforms are WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr.
Module 2 Notes
Respond to the questions on this Google Form for your Module 2 notes.
Module 3 Notes
Respond to the questions on this Google Form for your Module 3 notes.
Module 4 Notes
Repost the link to your Google Docs Web Resource List
There is a wide range of OER tools. Popular examples include Khan Academy, Moodle and TED-Ed.
Program developers who produce open source software seek make computer software available to the all for free or inexpensively. Popular examples of open source are OpenOffice, WordPress, and Mozilla Firefox.
The U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 established protections for creators. The Copyright Act of 1976 also includes a section on “Fair Use,” which established rights for users of created works.
Like copyright law, intellectual property is confusing and varies across countries.
I think of the Creative Commons movement as an attempt to promote digital citizenship. Creative Commons license provides flexibility for creators and users of created works.
Works that are part of the Public Domain do not require permission to be used.
Creative Commons has partnered with several groups to provided creative works with CC licenses. The most popular tool is searching CC works through flickr.
I was turned off by the immediate request for a donation screen that pops up once I confirmed my registration to the site.
The interface for Thinkfinity is easy to navigate.
I saw an Ignite talk by one of the founders of P2PU and think the strength of this OER is their ability to foster a strong online community. It relies on passionate volunteers who contribute content and strongly believe in the mission of P2PU.
After exploring the website, I am still not really sure how it works. Maybe when my request for membership to the Wiki is accepted I will better understand what resources are available.
Module 2 Notes
Module 3 Notes
Module 4 Notes